At surface level, this action/reaction seemed survivable for all concerned. Sure, Hill’s colleagues were placed in the nearly impossible position of wanting to agree with and/or support her while simultaneously somehow not getting remonstrated themselves. Additionally, the show had to go on. So again, it was messy, but manageable.

Indeed, Hill herself seemed to have reached some useful conclusions in a thoughtful, even-handed essay she posted to The Undefeated (an ESPN property) a few weeks ago, after the initial controversy had died down:

Twitter wasn’t the place to vent my frustrations because, fair or not, people can’t or won’t separate who I am on Twitter from the person who co-hosts the 6 p.m. SportsCenter. Twitter also isn’t a great place to have nuanced, complicated discussions, especially when it involves race…I probably need to take some classes about how to exercise better self-control on Twitter. Lesson learned.

ESPN was, shall we say, miffed when Hill used her Twitter platform to denigrate the President. But any effect her shots at Trump might have had to ESPN’s bottom line via lost viewership and subscription losses were going to be tangential and really difficult to prove.

This time, Hill made the mistake no media member should ever make: She advocated boycotting the advertisers on NFL broadcasts. Hill bit the hand that feeds. ESPN’s business ties to the NFL are deep and expensive. They are also sort of fraught with underlying tension, as this New York Times piece noted:

ESPN never gets a Super Bowl and only began to carry a single annual playoff game in 2015.

ESPN lacks the flex rights of NBC, which can swap a suboptimal matchup for one that is more promising on CBS or Fox, as it did Sunday. Instead of carrying its scheduled Jets-New England game, NBC took Denver-Kansas City from CBS.

For that lesser deal ESPN pays the N.F.L. $1.9 billion annually, nearly twice what any of its network rivals shells out.

Try to see this from ESPN’s perspective. What incentive does the NFL have to give ESPN a better deal, with better games, if ESPN’s 6:00 p.m. SportsCenter anchor is recommending that people switch the games off and stop buying the advertisers’ products?

Hill’s latest Twitter volley took direct aim at the business interests of the Dallas Cowboys and their owner Jerry Jones, and only slightly indirect aim at the business interests of the NFL. “America’s Team” is worth $4.8 billion and remains the most valuable club in the league.

ESPN’s September reprimand of Hill following the Trump controversy, consistent with the above, was all the warning Hill was due. Keep your Twitter feed clean if you want your job. If the past 48 hours have proven anything, it’s that Hill learned nothing from her prior mistakes.

Hill clearly does not want her current job on the terms offered by ESPN. She wants to keep herself in the news cycle. Hill also apparently has no real concern for the impact her actions repeatedly have on her co-host, Michael Smith, who sat out last night’s show as a demonstration of his support for Hill.

Who are you to call for someone else’s job? Honestly she should’ve been suspended for the first tweets about Trump. But for this? And you’re saying she should be fired? For what? Jerry Jones, who is an unbelievable piece of trash, deserves any negative attention he gets. He doesn’t say a word about his players committing domestic abuse or drug crimes, you know illegal things. But because he’s a huge trump donor and supporter, he all of a sudden puts out a ridiculous mandate for his players. Sure he has the right as a private business owner. But where was this last year? Why did he wait until now? Oh right because trump, his guy, said so. Hill was completely in the right to voice her displeasure with him and his stupid ruling. And if ESPN is that much in bed with the Cowboys, then she should want to be fired to get away from people and companies like that.

All he’s saying is if you break the rules of a contract twice, most companies will fire you. This article does not debate the merits of Jerry Jones or how he is big a piece of trash. I actually agree with alot of what she says, however when you work for business you represent that business and if you, as an employee, do anything to affect possible business dealings then that employer has the right to terminate your employment. I like Jemele Hill and respect that these issues mean so much to her, but she works for a company with business dealings with the NFL and asking people to boycott them and thier advistsers is out of line as an employee of ESPN.

I agree any company has the right to suspend or fire an employee for not following rules on social media. But to suspend her for this is the ultimate form of hypocrisy. Espn gladly broadcasts the NFL and specifically the cowboys who often have legal woes. But they don’t do anything about it. But because one of their employees doesn’t agree with a ridiculously stupid rule by an owner, they suspend her? And he can say that he disagrees with her but you over step when you publicly call for someone’s job. And that’s what this “writer” did. Yes it’s lose lose for ESPN. But big picture you have a company suspending an employee because she has an issue with an owner contesting freedom of speech/expression.

Maybe you should read yourself, dipshit. The first words are “Congress shall make no law”. Congress has nothing to do with this.

I’m sure you were equally upset when ESPN fired Rush Limbaugh…

Hey 1st Amendment!October 11, 2017 at 9:56 am

I do understand you. But you are irrelavent when a PRIVATE company disciplines/fires an employee based on something he/she said.

Thomas JeffersonOctober 11, 2017 at 5:11 pm

Her right to say anything she wants is safe.
So is her employer’s right to suspend or terminate her per the wording contained in her contract.
The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee anybody a job you dipshit.

Big fan of Ron who calls both radio stations with bad jokesOctober 10, 2017 at 7:28 pm

Whitey got her down .

Fucking stopped watching ESPN completely because it stopped being about sports and became about promoting the liberal agenda. It wasn’t a conscious “I’ll show them” decision, I just am not interested in watching it any more. Give me sports

So they suspend a liberal anchor but they support all liberal actions. Moron. Breakinng News. They ARE liberal. So what. Fox news is conservative. What else is new. Want to see a REAL liberal sire? Go to Deadspin.

She should be gone because she sucks, that 6 show is unwatchable. She wants to be fired so she can go be Oprah-light (but not too much lighter, cause Hill is one biscuit away from being as big a cow as Oprah). I agree with what she said in this case, any dogging of Trump is valid.

“ESPN was, shall we say, miffed when Hill used her Twitter platform to denigrate the President. ”

Wait. SHE denigrated the President? He did that himself. All she did was point out the fact that he is a racist and a white supremicist. That’s obvious to anyone paying attention through his words, actions, and those with whom he associates.

Kyle, is this one of your investors? If you have to give Tucker Carlson’s slow uncle here a weekly column, you made a bad investment choice.

So racist Hill can call the president a white supremacist and denigrate the entire city of Boston as racist and ESPN is totally fine with it because it brings in click-bait yet when she says something that negatively affects their bottom line ESPN is all of a sudden the morality police? Bunch of d-bags at ESPN, way to take a stand.

You basically said it yourself. ESPN takes a stand on whatever side gets them the most money. Who has room for morals when in capitalism anyway, right? I’m sure you’re the type of guy who always says “it’s a business not a charity.”

She’s a racist who hates “whitey”. That’s it. It’s all she knows. She looked like a complete ass with the Trump tweets and an even bigger ass when she encouraged NFL fans to boycott the NFL which in turn would hurt the company she works for. Tweets about Trump are fine, even if they are delusional, but you can’t go after the advertisers of the company you work for.

She should have never been hired in the first place for that job, and ESPN has to be thinking of a way to ease her out.

She didn’t call for a boycott. Did you actually read her tweets? Like this one: “Just so we’re clear: I’m not advocating a NFL boycott”. She tweeted a series of relatively thoughtful comments on both perspectives and made the point that if people disagree with Jones they can boycott, much like people are now boycotting the NFL because some players won’t stand. It’s telling you never actually linked to the tweets in your article. Sloppy.

She makes comments that Twitter is not the placed for “nuanced” discussions involving “race,” after using Twitter to call the president a “white supremacist.” Jamele, that is not offering or leading to nuanced discussion. That is vitriol, just like the President uses to attack those he dislikes. You are no better than he is. I don’t like the man, but you have no intellectual basis to call him a white supremacist. You just look foolish. uninformed and reactionary.

As a broadcaster, you represent ESPN, plain and simple. Twitter is a public forum. They have every right to hold you accountable for what you say. And this is coming from a guy who can’ stand ESPN and haven’t liked the network for almost 10 years now.

He said a group of white supremacists and nazis were “very fine people” and the guy has a history of discriminating against black people and minoroties back to at least the 70s. How is that not an intellectual basis for calling him a white supremacist?

This is simply not true, he didn’t call the skin heads fine people he called some of the people protesting against the removal of confederate statues fine people. Not all the people protesting against the removal were skin heads or Nazis, actually one was a black man and others were not affiliated with Nazis. Just like the side wanting to remove the statues were not all Antifa retards.

Very good points. Hill is a paid employee, who is expected to provide (let’s he honest) a young, female, urban point of view. That’s all well and good. ESPN has made the decision to start leaning liberal and that was their call. However you don’t fuck with the organizations who have he biggest financial ties to you and not expect serious repercussions. I personally don’t give a damn if she’s fired or not, but ESPN needs to do a better job of nipping this behavior in the bud.

I agree….I think that she can express her opinions, one way or the other (well, who am I kidding, it’s one way!), but she cannot advocate against ESPN’s meal ticket, the NFL. It’s like Mikey Miss, saying he did’t know that 6 ABC and ESPN were owned by Disney, right after he ripped ESPN. He got blown out pretty darn quick and what he said was far less hurtful. If I worked for a company whose biggest client was Miller Lite, and I went on twitter telling people to boycott Miller Lite for whatever reason, how long do you think I would last at my job?

Nope my real name is Chris. And I am not hiding behind a racist name like the above poster. Most of the commenters on this site use fake handles because it usually has to do with their comment. But then there are the others who think its funny to make racist jokes or dick jokes like they’re 12 years old.

Knee growsOctober 11, 2017 at 3:00 pm

Chris who

and who cares if people don’t use their real names. Their point is still valid.

you can’t handle the fact that somebody has a different opinion than you.

Thin-skinned weak douche.

You are filthy as well. Go shower with weinstein.

MTLEBANON via LanghorneOctober 11, 2017 at 10:32 am

Excellent article and many great points in the comment section. For the people that agree with Hill and think she should not have been suspended, RE-READ the article. It has nothing to do with her views, it has to do with negatively impacting her employer’s business and it’s customers. She’s an entited clown who forgets why she has a platform……ESPN.